It was a harrowing morning for some residents of a Courtenay motel after a second-storey fire caused a complete evacuation and resulted in one man being taken to hospital.
Fire crews were called to the Travelodge in Courtenay at approximately 3:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning after residents awoke to smoke and flames inside the building.
When the Courtenay Fire Department arrived, firefighters found the structure on fire, with heavy smoke and flames shooting out of a couple of units on the second floor of the building.
Dave Waugh, a resident of the building, says he was woken up by noise at his door, which he had perceived to be people playing pranks outside.
“I heard a knock shortly after 3 a.m. and I thought it was people just horsing around. I opened my door and immediately I see smoke, fire and I understood the severity of the situation and out the door, I went,” said Waugh.
Waugh noted that a friend in the building had been the one to knock on the door as residents scrambled to alert those in the building and get out safely. Due to his rapid reaction, Waugh says he wasn’t able to grab any belongings to bring with him and he has yet to return to his unit to see the damage.
Kurt MacDonald, fire chief of the Courtenay Fire Department, said though some residents had begun to evacuate, there were still lots of people in the building as crews began to enter to attack the blaze.
“There were some tense moments when we first arrived, just with the number of people that were in the building. A lot of people hadn’t fully evacuated yet and we had to encourage them to leave the building,” said MacDonald.
Once in the building, crews knocked down the fire and did a search of units in close proximity. MacDonald said that in one room nearby the burning unit, firefighters located a man who had been trapped by the fire.
Firefighters were able to remove the person from the suite and transfer him over to BC Emergency Health Services, where he was transported to hospital.
Waugh recalled seeing the man being removed from the building on a stretcher and thought the worst, however, later follow up with BCEHS revealed the man has suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
MacDonald noted that the fire developed quite rapidly, breaching the exterior wall and breaking through the drywall of the unit, getting up into the attic of the building.
It started to spread through the attic, but firefighters were able to stop it from reaching the opposite side of the building, which helped to limit the damages at one end.
Authorities note that there was considerable smoke, fire and water damage around the units where the blaze started.
Roughly 30 people have been displaced by the fire, and a handful were taken out of the danger area and taken to a reception centre to help find them housing in the short term.
BC Housing has been leasing a section of the motel to support people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
BC Housing says it’s working closely with the Travelodge and the Fire Department to see how many guests will be able to return in the near future.
Fire investigators will be working with RCMP in order to determine the cause of the fire, but officials do not believe it was suspicious.
Graham Cox
